


The Ones Who Leave Us

by JuneSong13



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 08:18:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16091699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuneSong13/pseuds/JuneSong13
Summary: "Matt thinks he could love Stick.He gives Stick a little bit of nothing and everything to tell him that, and he can hear Stick’s disappointment.He doesn’t see Stick again.Matt learns something important then. People don’t leave because you cost too much or complicate things. They leave because you’re not what they wanted you to be."Ever since before he could remember, everybody in Matt Murdock's life leaves.He tries his hardest– he really does– to make them stay, make himself something they would stay for.And they leave anyways.





	The Ones Who Leave Us

Her name is Maggie, and he doesn’t remember her.

He knows she’s his mother, knows she birthed him, but beyond that, all he knows is that she left him, alone, in Hell’s Kitchen, with a struggling father who was trying his damndest but couldn’t do enough.

She left because of finances, she left because of uncertainty, she left because she was scared. Matt’s heard it all, but more than anything, he knows that she left because of  _ him _ .

Dad tries his best to make sure Matt doesn’t hear it that way. He sits Matt down whenever Matt asks, says in that voice of his, “Mattie, it wasn’t you,” but he knows it’s not the truth. They both know it’s not the truth.

The truth is that Maggie might’ve left because of finances and worry about an uncertain future, but those finances and worries about uncertain futures are because of Matt. Because Matt was born, they didn’t have enough to feed everyone. Because Matt was born, she couldn’t be sure of her future. Because Matt was born, her life became infinitely more complicated, and she couldn’t handle it. So she left.

And it’s Matt’s fault.

  
  


When Matt’s nine, the world goes dark, and all of a sudden he’s sorry he existed all over again.

_ No light perception _ , the doctor says.  _ Total blindness _ , he explains.  _ It means that Matthew here’s eyes don’t respond to light, don’t see anything. Entirely without sight _ .

Then he starts talking about classes and mobility aids and special books, and Matt realizes, with a sinking feeling, that this is just like when he was born. All of a sudden, there’s so much new stuff that they can’t afford but have to buy just so he can live. All of a sudden, the future is uncertain for Matt  _ and _ for Dad.

Sitting in that hospital bed, staring out at nothing, Matt realizes,  _ Dad’s gonna leave _ .

Dad doesn’t leave at first. He buys the books and the cane, puts Matt in classes, scrounges up a pair of glasses. He learns everything he can about how to help Matt, roots out a support group for trauma recovery that he promises is free but Matt knows costs too much.

He handles anything and everything Matt’s blindness throws his way. He handles it when the sheets start to feel like sandpaper, when the soap starts to sting Matt’s eyes from half a room away. Matt knows that the new sheets and soap and everything else aren’t cheap, knows it’s a pretty penny that they can’t afford, and he feels his heart sink into his shoes. There’s the thought again—  _ Dad’s gonna leave _ .

He’s right about that. Dad doesn’t leave because he wants to, but he does leave because of Matt’s disability and all the money it costs. He goes out to earn more, takes risks he shouldn’t because he wants to protect Matt from sheets that make him scratch until he bleeds, soap that gives him headaches, and food that makes him want to throw up.

But then the risks catch up to him.

And then he gets shot.

And then he leaves.

And Matt is alone.

  
  


Matt goes to St. Agnes’, and his life becomes hell.

At St. Agnes’, there is not Dad to make sure the sheets don’t itch him, the soap doesn’t choke him, the food doesn’t gag him. At St. Agnes’, there’s too many kids and not enough funding, and while the nuns try their best– they really do– they simply cannot afford to get him nice sheets and fancy soap and better food.

Matt goes down and he doesn’t get back up. It’s too much— he could handle the sounds, before, but the sounds and the itch and the taste and the smell all roll together, and he swears they’re getting worse, he’s hearing more, tasting more, feeling more.

That’s when he meets Stick.

Stick is easy to talk to. Stick understands. He knows the sounds and the smells, and he knows why the sheets itch and the soap burns. He teaches Matt to tune it out, to retreat into his mind where the sheets itching won’t kill him and the soap won’t gag him and the food won’t catch in his throat. He teaches Matt how to focus on everything and nothing, how to take what he hears and smells and tastes and feels and process it all.

Stick also teaches him to fight. Teaches Matt how to feel in control of his body for once in his life. Teaches Matt how to channel all his hurt and frustration and anger into the steady ache of split knuckles and bruised skin and sore muscles.

Matt thinks he could love Stick.

He gives Stick a little bit of nothing and everything to tell him that, and he can hear Stick’s disappointment.

He doesn’t see Stick again.

Matt learns something important then. People don’t leave because you cost too much or complicate things. They leave because you’re not what they wanted you to be.

  
  


He meets Elektra in college. There’s an energy about her that draws him in— it’s like she’s a live wire or the sharp edge of a knife, and he’s a five-year-old kid and mesmerized by it.

He thinks he might love her too. They fight and they drink and they have fantastic sex, and Matt thinks he might be in love with all her wild, sharp edges and burning, passionate vitality.

This time, he tries his hardest to be what she wants him to be. He drops classes and ignores Dad’s voice in his head, telling him to be responsible, to build a better future for himself than just fighting. He fights, hones the skills that Stick had taught him and he had never really let himself forget, adapts to whatever new languages she throws his way weekly, stops worrying about a record when he hears the “silent” alarms as he breaks into places.

He lets himself feed the devil in his heart, because that’s what she wants him to be— her equal.

But then she hands him a knife and asks him to cross the one line he cannot touch.

“Kill him,” she says, and he hears the razor edge of her smile buried in the curves of her accent. “Kill him. He deserves it, Matthew. Kill him.”

Matt is willing to give Elektra anything. He will fight, he will break, he will ruin for her. But this— this.

This he cannot do.

“No,” he says. “I can’t.”

She leaves him then. Pads out the door too quiet for anyone but him to hear, takes the car, leaves him behind.

Matt picks up after her, makes sure there’s nothing to incriminate either of them, and walks the opposite direction.

He’s fine, he tells himself. Just one more person who’s left. It’s fine. He’s fine.

He’s  _ fine _ .

  
  


Foggy is the one who picks him up in the middle of Queens at two in the morning the day Elektra leaves him. He asks questions, because of course he asks questions, but they’re muted, and he doesn’t push.

Matt is eternally grateful for that. He’s not sure how to explain any of it.

Foggy is a good person. He’s overly casual and completely devoid of any artifice, eats the strangest, most disgusting food and listens to the worst music. He stress-eats, which is bad because stress also causes him to gain weight, but it’s fine because he’s still reasonably healthy, outrageously gregarious enough to make people forget everything but that, and doesn’t have voices in his head warning him that he’s gotta be fast, gotta be fit, or he’s not going to be able to defend himself when someone inevitably comes to kill him.

In other words, he’s enviably  _ normal _ .

Matt also knows exactly what Foggy wants him to be.

Foggy wants Matt to be normal. Foggy wants Matt to be just a devilishly handsome, affably kind, annoyingly in-shape college student. Foggy wants Matt to be pious and innocent and helpless and a goddamn normal blind guy.

Matt can’t be what Foggy wants him to be. But he likes Foggy– God, he might even  _ love _ Foggy– and he’s afraid to lose Foggy, so he pretends. He pretends to be normal, to be just a devilishly handsome, affably kind, annoyingly in-shape college student. He hides the sleepless nights when the darkness beckons, the nauseating guilt when he hears crimes in back alleys, the pounding rage when awareness of his monumental  _ uselessness _ sets in.

And when, one day, he can’t  _ take it _ anymore, can’t sit back and listen to people getting beaten and raped and threatened while he does nothing and can say nothing—

He doesn’t let Foggy see that either.

He doesn’t let Foggy see when he starts buying gear, doesn’t let Foggy see when he starts beating in faces to help the screaming, crying voices he’s been hearing since he was ten years old.

But of course, Foggy finds out. Because that’s what happens to secrets— they don’t stay hidden.

And Foggy is angry. Foggy feels betrayed. Foggy asks him, “Why didn’t you tell me? Would you ever have told me?”

Matt tells the truth. Foggy deserves the truth. He’s already going to leave, so it’s not like the truth can do any more harm.

“No.”

He doesn’t say,  _ No, because I knew you would leave _ , doesn’t say,  _ No, because if you had lived my life, you wouldn’t have either _ , because he knows that’s not fair. He shouldn’t have lied, but he did it because he’s selfish and afraid and doesn’t want Foggy to leave him.

Foggy walks out of his apartment.

Matt doesn’t stop him.

  
  


Foggy comes back later, because of course he does.

But even then, he can’t seem to leave behind what he wants Matt to be, and in the end, it falls through again. This time, though, Elektra dies and the firm falls through and Karen leaves, and Matt makes up his mind to be what Foggy wants him to be.

It is wretched. It is miserable. Matt has to force himself to stay in his apartment every time he hears a scream or a cry or shout. But he does it, and he hates it, because it’s what Foggy wants him to be, what Karen wants him to be. He tells himself that the city doesn’t need Daredevil anymore— and he slogs forwards, keeps going, beats at the tide.

Then the city shakes, and the world falls, and the city  _ needs _ him. And he can’t ignore the screaming anymore.

Foggy confronts him about it. He’s not happy. Matt can taste and hear and smell his disappointment, but that makes Foggy uncomfortable, so he tries not to. He promises not to do it again, accepts Foggy’s offer to drown himself in work.

It doesn’t help— he just finds Jessica Jones and gets drawn deeper into the bullshit that is his alter ego again. Elektra’s alive again— she doesn’t have a heartbeat and smells different, but Matt would recognize the cadence of her breath anywhere. The city’s in danger, again. The city needs him, again.

The next thing he knows, he’s putting on the suit and chasing down the Hand, and Stick is dying, and Danny Rand’s getting kidnapped, and then Matt’s waking up in the Harlem precinct with the stiff ink of NYPD scratching him from his shirt, Foggy standing over him.

By then, he’s up to his neck in trouble and has no intention of leaving until it’s done and settled. He knows Foggy knows it. He also knows that Foggy thinks this is his last hurrah, knows that Foggy doesn’t understand that for the first time almost a year, Matt feels  _ alive _ .

He knows that Foggy’s giving him the suit with the hope that this is the last time he’ll ever wear it. He knows he’s going to have to tell Foggy the truth afterwards. He’s too distracted to try at the moment.

Foggy and Karen are the first to come to mind when he makes his decision. He thinks about them, about how disappointed they’re going to be. They’re going to grieve. They’re going to hate him.

But they only ever had a fraction or a shadow of him, really. And he doesn’t have the heart to face them, face their disappointment, and tell them that what they’re doing, what they’re sure is best for him, is slowly killing him from the inside out.

At least this way,  _ they _ won’t be leaving  _ him _ .

He tells Jessica and Luke and Danny to go. Leave. He promises that he’ll be right behind them.

And he turns around to face Elektra, this only person who ever seemed to understand his other half, and resolves himself to save her, because this is  _ not _ how Elektra Natchios dies. Not alone, not standing at the bottom of a pit, not forced idle as she’s crushed by rubble.

She remembers him. She holds him. They both know they’re going to die.

Matt kisses her then and there, not because he wants her, but because it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, and the woman he wants is not there for him to kiss instead.

He smiles morbidly when he realizes that this  _ is _ the last time he wears that suit.

Except it’s not how Foggy and Karen want it to be, because instead of living and packing it away, he’s dying with it on and will never get to take it off.

  
  


Except he doesn’t die.

He wakes up in a bed, alone but for a single nun beside him, praying with her rosary.

Her name is Maggie, and he doesn’t remember her. But he does recognize her, in the twisted way that he recognizes a something about her scent that tells him they're related.

“I’m sorry,” she says, when he confronts her for it. “I’m sorry.”

She is his mother, she birthed him, and she left him, alone, in Hell’s Kitchen with his struggling father who tried his damndest but died too soon. Maybe because of finances or uncertainty or fear, Matt doesn’t know— all that matters is that she left Matt alone with the knowledge that it was because of him, started this vicious cycle that ended in his death.

_ She left _ .

“I’m sorry,” she says, brushing her fingers over his face.

And she came back.

Something’s changing in Hell’s Kitchen; Matt can perceive it just like he feels and hears and smells and tastes everything else in the world. Something’s changing.

The world’s always been about leaving. Matt has a feeling things are about to start coming back.

**Author's Note:**

> Ooof, haven't posted anything in way too long.  
> Yes, I just wrote a random one-shot and posted it un-edited. I hope it's not trash, but honestly I don't have time to check at this point.  
> Comment if you have anything to say– especially constructive criticism PLEASE– and leave a kudos if you think it's not a tremendous waste of your time!


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